1. Field
This invention is concerned with planter shoes for agricultural planters.
2. State of the Art
A variety of soil-penetrating so-called "shoes" have been developed through the years for different purposes. They are of various shapes in accordance with different conditions of use and results desired. Although agricultural plows or sweeps are not normally regarded as "shoes", they are of generally similar form whether constructed merely for working the soil prior to furrowing for the planting of row crops or for furrowing previously worked soil for row crop planting. Also, there are so-called "irrigation shovesl", such as those produced and sold by Acme Products Co., Filer, Idaho, for digging irrigation channels between row plantings of crops, and there are a variety of different forms of seeding shoes.
Thus, Schutter U.S. Pat. No. 1,607,102 issued Nov. 16, 1926 discloses an agricultural planter having seeding shoes for forming furrows immediately prior to depositing seeds in the furrows formed by the shoes; Teal U.S. Pat. No. 3,005,502 issued Oct. 24, 1961 discloses a so-called "seed furrow plow" in which plowing blades are arranged in a particular way to prepare agricultural land for planting prior to actual deposit of the seed; and Glee U.S. Pat. No. 3,517,752 issued Jun. 30, 1970 discloses a so-called "planting shovel" for mounting on an agricultural planter to provide a furrow from which underlying wet soil has been raised and redeposited relative to dry soil at the surface, so that seed deposited in the furrow during travel of the planter through the agriculture area concerned will not require initial surface watering.
In each of the above-mentioned prior art patents, the shoes concerned are made, as in the shoe of this invention, contrary to the popular notion of how a planting shoe should be shaped, i.e., they are made with furrowing blades sloping backwardly from a point at the bottom of the shoe and diverging outwardly as they slope backwardly, in contrast to the usual seeding shoe shaped as is the prow of a ship, with the point uppermost and the furrowing blades sloping backwardly from such point and converging inwardly and downwardly as they slope backwardly.
In Collins U.S. Pat. No. 2,764,111 issued Sept. 25, 1956, a fertilizing implement has a somewhat similar fertilizing shoe provided with a relatively small furrow-opening blade at its rear immediately forwardly of a tube for depositing legume seeds, so as to open a small seed-planting furrow directly over and slightly above the fertilizer which is deposited, along with a covering quantity of soil at the sides of the main furrow by reason of the fact that the bottom edges of the side plates of the shoe slope upwardly as they extend rearwardly.
In none of these patents is the degree of prow slope disclosed as critical.